Sins of the Father
by Ken's luver
Summary: (Sequel to 'Doppelgangland)After Ken killed Osamu, the former Kaiser, he let the darkness take over him. Now it's up to the Chosen Children and Kouen to save him, hopefully before his nephew is born...but that's the least of their problems
1. Default Chapter

"Sins of the father"

1. 'Took what I hated and made it apart of me'

_"Put all the pain you gave to me on display_

_But didn't realize, instead of setting it free_

_I took what I hated and made it apart of me._

_And now you've become a part of me,_

_You'll always be right here._

_You've become a part of me_

_You'll always be my fear._

_I can't separate myself from what I've done._

_I've given up a part of me_

_I've let myself become you."_

_'Figure.09' Linkin Park_

Kouen stepped forward, her feet numb against the burning ambers she was standing on. She had seen him, she was sure she had. She took another careful step forward and smelt Osamu's sent on the air. He was here after all. But he was dead, how could this be possible?

She looked up at the cave like ceiling and then looked down. As she crossed the stone arch she saw that hot lava flowed beneath it like a deadly river. She took another cautious step forward and kicked a pebble by accident. It bounced a few paces in front of her and then fell into the lava, where it exploded in a large angry flame. She flinched at the heat from it; it was close enough to lick her cheek.

She looked up again and saw him for the first time. He was dressed in jeans, a green sweatshirt and his gold-rimmed glasses. As usual his hair was spiked but something was missing from his face that she always equated him with, his smile. He looked angry with her.

She frowned and called out to him, "Osamu? Osamu? What's wrong?"

"Follow me, Kouen and I'll show you."

His voice sounded constricted by anger and disappointment and it made her insides squirm.

She ran forward, abandoning all care for crossing the bridge and followed him. He went around a dark corner and she felt she had to sprint to catch up, but when she rounded the corner all she could see was pitch black. It was so dark that when she closed her eyes and opened them again, she could not tell the difference.

"Osamu!" she called out and heard her voice echo and drown in the darkness.

"Kouen!" he called back, a slight edge to his tone, "This way!"

She carelessly ran forward and miraculously did not stumble over anything. But she stopped suddenly when the light filled the area once more and found her self, standing on the very edge of a cliff. The light, she noticed was coming from the flames below. She turned to her right and saw Osamu standing in the shadows.

"Osamu? What did you want to show me?"

"I wanted to show you what happens to people who betray those they love."

He grabbed her shoulder and forced her to look down.

A scream died in her throat at the site. Three hideous beats as large as houses were growling up at her. The one in the middle however was grinning. They were covered in scales and hair. They stood on two legs and their hands, like their feet were edged with menacing looking claws. The oddest thing about them was their mouths. They were huge, with far too many teeth. She gasped and looked quizzically at Osamu.

"Osamu, why are you showing me these creatures?" she asked quietly.

"You betrayed me Kouen. The worst seat in hell is saved for those who betray."

And with that said, he pushed her forward off the cliff, where she screamed till she felt her throat tear and landed into the third monsters' mouth where darkness consumed her and she woke up from the sound of her own screaming.

She sat up in bed, panting and wiped the sweat from her face. When she realized that she was in her own bed in her own apartment, she dissolved into tears.

Yamato opened her bedroom door and looked in on her with a glass of water in his hand. He stepped into the room and sat down on the edge of her bed and handed her the glass of water. She looked up and took it from him gratefully.

"Thanks Yamato."

She took a large gulp of water and set it down on her bedside table.

"Same nightmare?" he asked quietly.

She nodded, "It's been months since…since…you would think I would be a bit past it wouldn't you?"

"Your problem is that you just carry around this unnecessary guilt. Ken told you it's how Osamu wanted it."

At Ken's name she looked down again and sighed, "I not only let Osamu down, I let Ken down too. What kind of mother am I going to be?"

Yamato held her shoulder and forced her to look at him.

"It's not your fault. Stop blaming yourself, Kouen. We will help Ken, no matter what, so don't worry. And you will be a great mother."

She smiled at him, "Thanks Yamato. Thank you for looking after me these last couple of months and for helping me get through Osamu's death. I don't know what I would have done without you."

"I'd do anything for you Kouen, you know that."

Her unborn child kicked inside of her, reminding her that he was there, or protesting his mother's worrisome dream. Kouen ran a hand over her round belly and felt tears spring to her eyes again.

"I just want Ken to be himself again before his nephew is born."

"We still have a couple of weeks left before that. Now, you need to get some sleep. I'll be in the next room if you need me."

He got up and closed the door quietly behind him. Instead of putting her head back down on her pillow, she threw back her covers and stood up. She adjusted her white nightgown because it was twisted from thrashing about during her dream and walked into the bathroom. She opened the tap and let the cold water run for a moment before cupping her hands under the running water. She ran her damp hands through her long red hair and then splashed some cool water onto her face. She looked up into the mirror and nearly fell backwards. Instead of seeing just her reflection, she saw her reflection surrounded by a glowing, burning red/orange aura. She stepped back and looked down at her hands, but they were not glowing at all. She looked back up at the mirror and she was still glowing. She frowned and watched as the aura faded as if it were never there.

"What are you trying to tell me?" she growled at the mirror, not talking to her reflection, but to something that was deep inside of her.

"I need to talk to Ryo, he'll know."

She walked back into her room and sat down on her bed. She stretched out to pick up the phone but then glanced at the time. It was nearly three thirty in the morning, too early to call anyone. She sighed and lay back down, "It will have to wait until morning.'

* * *

"You betrayed me brother! You stuck a blade in my gut and killed me and then, if the insult is not enough, you impersonate me!" 

"I'm not impersonating you!" Ken protested, though his voice was small and seemed far away.

"Really? Look at yourself."

Osamu in his Kaiser uniform let his violet eyes drift from Ken's toes to the very spiky hair on his head.

Ken glanced down at himself. He was indeed dressed in a similar garb, save for the fact that the area of black in the Kaiser uniform was blue.

"This is who I am now."

The world around Ken faded from view and was replaced by the dim light of his room. He blinked his eyes and sat up in bed, groaning at the throbbing pain in his head.

Wormmon was sitting at the foot of his bed, which was situated in the bedroom of his Base.

"Ken," Wormmon breathed, "It looked like you were having another nightmare."

Ken said nothing but got up and walked to his mirror. He studied his face and eyes. His cold and distant eyes were surrounded by dark rings, which made him look as if he hadn't slept well in months. Which, he hadn't.

He lifted a shaking hand to his face and touched his cheek. He felt cold, not like a person should feel. He brought his other hand up to his face and ran his fingers through his dark hair and then bent over his bathroom counter to lean his elbows on it, sighing heavily as he did so.

He felt so detached from everything. At first that's exactly how he wanted to feel, but now, now he missed the warmth of Miyako's touch. He missed the laughter of his best friend Daisuke. And he missed his 'big-sister'. There were moments where Ken wished that the Kaiser inside him would just take over completely, make him forget everything and everyone. He wanted to be numb; he wanted to just not care about anything anymore.

The Base was cold and dark, exactly how Osamu had built it and no matter how much Ken tried to escape everything, especially the memory of killing Osamu, it was always there, surrounding him. It was in every wall, floor and door, just like it was in every muscle, vein and breath of Ken's.

Wormmon scuttled to the bathroom door and hesitated before speaking.

"Ken, are you okay?"

"Get out." He said absently.

"But Ken, what about your breakfast…?"

"I said GET OUT!" he spun on the poor Digimon with such speed and force that he jumped back and scuttled out the room as fast as his legs would allow.

Ken sighed heavily and fell to his knees.

"Is this what I've become? A cold person, trying to push everyone away? It's easier isn't it? To have no one to look at you as if you were a killer? A dirty person, a…a monster?"

He pushed himself off the floor and as he made his way to the door, data flew to him, creating the Kaiser garb, which had attached itself to him as if it were skin. His hair was spiked and violet visors covered his cold blue eyes. This is who he was now…the Kaiser.

He walked down the passage to the monitor room and scowled when he saw four faces on the monitor: Miyako, Takeru, Daisuke and Hikari. He turned up the volume on his invisible keypad and listened to what they had to say about him this time.

He sat back on his throne and placed the tips of his fingers together.

"I still don't get it. He knew what the Dark Seed did. So why would he let it take over?" Takeru ground out.

Hikari sighed, "I don't think it's a case of letting it take over, so much as it taking over him. I think there was just too much for his soul to carry, too much darkness that he had seen and kept bottled up. It just took advantage of that and turned him into the Kaiser."

The Kaiser huffed and folded his arms, muttering to himself, "You really think that Hikari? You have no idea."

"But he's not completely bad." Miyako reasoned.

Ken felt himself grin.

"I mean, he hasn't gone completely insane and tried to take over both worlds. And he hasn't killed any Digimon for sport."

"But he still captured them and forced them to do his dirty work of putting up Dark Towers. And who knows what else he is doing." Takeru argued.

Ken sighed and turned off the monitor, only to have a new image form on it. Each monitor depicted a part of a Digimon and in the center was a concoction of all the pieces together to form the most horrible Digimon ever made: Chimeramon.

Wormmon scuttled cautiously into the room.

"Ken?" he asked.

Ken sighed again and spoke to Wormmon though he did not rest his eyes on the creature.

"Why is it, that no matter how many times I tell them that I want to be left alone here, they just won't listen?"

"Ken, you don't have to do this."

"It seems I must, maybe then they'll listen and let me be alone…like I deserve, like I want…like I need! They think the Kaiser took over, but the truth is, I let him in. I welcomed the darkness to take over." He added the last part to himself. "But it's not working how I thought it would. I'm still feeling everything, maybe soon, I won't feel anything anymore."

"Ken…" Wormmon pleaded but there was no real argument that he had.

Ken typed away on a keyboard that was not there and from the Base flew a deadly monster ready to attack his friends.

Fire flew at them and burned up most of the forest they were walking in. They only just had time to dive for cover when another attack came flying at them. Each one of them seemed ready for this and called out for their digimons to armor digivolve. They flew or ran to their powerful opponent but were beaten far too easily. Though the battle went on for almost an hour, and they fought as hard as they could, it just wasn't enough.

Ken watched and bowed his head in defeat as if it were something he did not wish to do but felt it was necessary and so had to go through with it. He watched as each digimon fell and each partner fell to their side to help them. Chimeramon had won and the Chosen Children were forced to retreat and regroup.

"You won Ken." Wormmon stated timidly.

"Not yet. She'll come, soon I suppose."

He rose from his seat and went out to the forest for a walk by himself. Wormmon left him to it; he had been doing this everyday for the past two months.

* * *

Kouen rolled over onto her side and stared at the clock next to her bed, right next to the glass of water Yamato had given her. She hadn't really slept much since he'd given it to her; instead she spent the time thinking. Her thoughts were filled with Osamu, Ken, her father, her mother and her unborn son. By this point she was feeling very insecure about her future and did the one thing all daughters do, no matter how old they are. She called her mother. 

She picked up the phone and hit speed-dial. She waited as the phone rang on the other end and finally someone picked it up, but it was not her mother. She recognized the voice to belong to the housekeeper.

"Um," she hesitated, "It's Kouen, is my mother home?"

"I'm afraid not ma'am. She's away on a cruise and will be back in a few days. Shall I leave a message?"

"Uh, no, no that's all right. Thank you."

Kouen hung up the phone and pulled her sheets close to her, biting her lip and trying not to cry. This was the most alone she had ever felt in her entire life.

* * *

Ken walked slowly through the forest, leaves crunching under his feet as he took each step. Here he was completely alone. The air was clear and sweet. The breeze was cool and comforting. He came to a cliff and sat down, his legs hanging over the edge. 

He stared out at the see of trees before him, running all the way to the horizon. In the distance he could see something else. Another world, gray and torturous. The world of the Dark Ocean. This was the only place he could see that world and every day he came here to be closer to it for a reason he wasn't sure of. He wanted to reach out and touch it but the world was like a rainbow. The closer he tried to get to it, the more elusive it became.

"It's not the same." He thought miserably to himself. "It's not the same as Osamu. When the Kaiser took over, he took over completely and I couldn't see any part of my brother in his eyes, but when I look in the mirror, all I see is me. I don't understand. I just want to escape."

Ken waited hopefully for an answer, but he should have known that today would have been no different. There was no one there to reply, just a small cold pocketknife. He pulled it out from his pocket and fiddled with it for a while before rolling up his sleeve. He sighed and ignored the other scars up his arm. He flicked the knife open and dragged the cool blade over his skin before pressing just a little bit harder. It was strange how the endorphins rushed through his brain and his body and numbed his pain and silenced any thoughts he had had in his head. There was nothing. No sound, no feeling, just a small amount of blood oozing it's way out of his body. He dragged it over his wrist and prayed for the courage to press just a little bit harder there, but Daisuke was the bearer of courage, not him. That's why he was counting on someone else doing it for him.

* * *

Kouen found that she was trying to distract herself for the rest of the morning, while she waited for Ryo to come by. She had put on some music and was 'baby-proofing' her apartment. However at that very moment she was having some trouble with a draw in the bathroom and couldn't get it to open again. She cursed, she tugged, she yelled and then just as Ryo came to investigate, she started sobbing in frustration. 

"Kouen?" he asked gently, "What are you doing?"

"I'm 'baby-proofing' the apartment." She replied distractedly.

He smirked, "Kouen, you still have a while to do things like that. The baby won't even be crawling for-"

"I'm getting a head-start okay!" she snapped back and began tugging on the draw again, growling in frustration.

"What's wrong?" he finally asked after watching her cautiously.

She didn't turn to him, but continued to tug at the draw. "I can't…open…this…freaking…draw!" she wailed and then gave up and turned to him, sobbing with an expression of utter distress.

"Let me help you." He offered, but he could tell this wasn't the actual problem.

"You can't help me Ryo! No one can help me! I can't have this baby!"

"It's a bit late for that Kouen." He half-jokingly replied.

"This isn't funny, Ryo! I'm serious! What kind of mother am I going to be? My own mother didn't even want me anymore, I'm not married, I'm all alone, I couldn't save Osamu and I couldn't even save Ken! I'm not ready, I can't, I can't do it. Please Ryo, tell me it's a dream and that none of it's real and I'll wake up. Please!"

She fell to her knees and sobbed uncontrollably.

Ryo couldn't hide his expression of apprehension. He wasn't good at this sort of thing, but he bent down and comforted her none-the-less.

"Kouen, you're just scared right now. It's okay. Everything will be okay and you'll be a great mother, don't worry."

Kouen started taking deep, calming breaths and nodded at Ryo, wiping away her tears.

"I'm sorry. Hormones…"

Ryo helped her to her feet.

"No, you've been through a lot Kouen. I'm surprised it took you this long to break down; you've been really strong. You're a fighter and you'll do anything for the people you love. That's what makes me think that you'll be a great mother and you'll be able to save Ken."

She swallowed and walked with Ryo to the kitchen, "Thanks Ryo, I just hope you're right."

He nodded and sat down at the table with her.

"Now, what did you want to discuss with me?"

"Oh right." She hesitated for a moment, trying to find the right way to phrase this.

"You told me about my beast spirit and my human spirit, but I think I need to know more about the fusion evolution."

Kouen put her elbows on the table and looked seriously at Ryo across from her.

"Like I said, it uses both spirits to form a new Digimon which is more powerful. Why do you ask Kouen?" he asked frowning.

She sighed, "Something weird is going on with my spirit. I keep getting this glow around me."

He looked sharply at her, "When did that start happening?"

"About a week ago I think. Thing is, I can only see it in my reflection sometimes."

"It hasn't been a week."

A cool, distant voice said from behind Kouen. Shinsei placed a cup of tea in front of Kouen and sat at the table.

"What do you mean?" Kouen asked after taking a sip of her tea.

"The glow has been around you ever since the fight with Osamu."

"You can see it?" Ryo asked incredulously.

Shinsei nodded.

Her piercing pale blue eyes stared at Kouen, "It's just gotten brighter lately."

"What do you know about the aura Shinsei?" Ryo asked quickly.

The young girl shrugged, "Only that the spirit is getting restless. Your feelings and emotions are connected to her Kouen. Her instinct is to fight and protect. You are denying her and so she is getting stronger and fighting to get out."

Kouen stared at the girl. "I can't fight Ken."

"It's not Ken you must fight, Kouen."

"Then who…?"

At that moment Hikari, Takeru, Daisuke and Miyako burst into Kouen's apartment, along with their beaten digimon.

"What happened?" she asked quickly.

"He made a digimon called Chimeramon, it kicked our butts and then some." Daisuke growled.

Something stirred in Kouen's memory.

"Ken, Ken from the other world, he mentioned a digimon called Chimeramon, that it was his experiment. We should have known this was coming!"

"Well, he's a really strong digimon and I don't know how we are going to beat him." Takeru huffed and took a seat.

"I'll have to fight it." Kouen stated quietly.

"Are you crazy?" Ryo yelled, "You're eight months pregnant! Evolving alone may hurt the baby, never mind about fighting!"

"Ryo, I have a feeling we'll be okay." She glanced at Shinsei, "It's time Ken came home to us."

"There's nothing I can say that will change your mind is there?" he asked defeated.

She shook her head and looked to Daisuke.

"I'll need some help getting to the Digital world."

He folded his arms and shook his head; "I'm not putting you or your baby in danger Kouen."

"Daisuke," Shinsei called, "Take her."

The goggle-head looked at the girl with long black hair and knowing that it was pointless in arguing the subject sighed.

"Fine."

Once they were in the Digital world, Kouen took a deep breath and evolved to her Beast spirit form. She glowed white and when the light faded, she was taller, wearing her gold body suit and thigh high bronze boots. There was no evidence that she was heavily pregnant.

Fiery orange wings were attached to her arms and a gold helmet the shape of an eagle's beak rested on her head and cast her eyes in shadow. Chimeramon came to fight her. They fought, though it was very brief. As Kouen was a much more powerful opponent, he did not stand much of a chance. After two of Chimeramon's attacks being thrown back at him, the digimon went down and was deleted.

She flew down and landed by Daisuke. She glowed white again and was now in her human form. Instead of her white Vietnamese dress that she usually wore, she was wearing a white gypsy dress. She was also sporting a slight sweat on her brow and she was shaking, but she ignored this.

"Do you want me to go with you?" Daisuke asked, concerned about her.

She shook her head, "I have to do this alone. I think it would be better that way."

* * *

Ken stood in his monitor room, not surprised at all. He sat at his throne and waited. And then he heard her voice at the door. 

"Hello Ken."

"Have you come to tell me what a bad boy I've been?" he asked coolly without looking at her.

"I've come to take you home. I know you want to."

She stepped forward and felt a twinge in her stomach.

"It's not that easy. They all look at me as if I were something that did not deserve to live…and they're right."

"No they aren't. And they don't Ken. You don't need this. You don't want it."

"I don't want to feel guilty anymore! I don't want to feel responsible anymore! I don't want to feel!" he yelled out.

"You don't want to feel Ken? You don't want to feel your nephew in your arms? Or his love? Or my love for you?"

He turned slowly to her, "It's a boy?"

She nodded, "I found out last week. I'm going to call him Sam."

She felt another twinge and tried to ignore it but it went all the way up her back and down her legs.

"Kouen, I never meant for it to go this far. It felt good in the beginning, not caring, but now…now I want to go home, but it's too late."

"It's never too late Ken."

This time she grunted with pain and doubled up.

"What's wrong?" he asked stepping toward her, "Is it the baby?"

"Oh, God. Something's wrong." She gasped and fell to her knees in agony, "Something's very wrong, Ken."

* * *

(AN) 

First off, just to clarify so you don't think I'm writing a soap opera here, Kouen's love for Ken is a sisterly love and his for her is a brotherly love, nothing more.

Right, well if you haven't read "Doppelgangland" you must be really confused. This is the sequel to that and it's a short little bridge between the crossover fic that Akino Ame and I are writing, called, "Cruel Angel's Thesis". That story is a crossover using "Doppelgangland", this story, her stories, "With Broken Wings", "Echo's of Angel's who won't return" and "Black Wings". So if you want to know where all this is going, I highly suggest you read those stories (you won't be disappointed) and then wait for "Cruel Angel's Thesis".

Right okay and as for updates, I'm not sure how often I'll be updating this one. It's all finished but I think I'm going to try and spread it out with "Black Wings" so you'll get a sense of both worlds. I hope you enjoy this and Akino's stories.

Man, I still hate that last line of Kouen's but it's the only thing that she could say really. Ah well.

Until the next time…

Nic.


	2. Whatever you became

"Sins of the Father"

2. 'Whatever you became'

_"You were born a part of me,_

_I was never good at hiding anything._

_My thoughts break me_

_Do you understand what you mean to me?_

_You are my faith._

_Won't you cure my tragedy?_

_Won't you cure my tragedy?_

_Don't take her smile away from me._

_She's broken and I'm far away._

_Won't you cure my tragedy?"_

_'Cure my tragedy (A letter to God)' Cold_

"The baby?" Ken ran forward and put a hand around her.

She squeezed her eyes shut against the pain coursing through her body. It was shooting down her legs, making them feel weak.

She nodded her head to confirm his fears.

"We have to get you to a hospital."

He breathed and helped her to her feet. He guided her to the largest monitor and in a flash of light they landed in the human world, in Ken's bedroom. He hesitated and she looked at him.

"Your parents aren't home. You parents are both at work." She gasped when pain shot through her again.

He nodded and helped her to the door.

"Sit on the couch, I'm going to call an ambulance."

She nodded and lay down on the couch. Her world seemed to swim in and out of focus. This wasn't normal; she knew it and it made her panic. How could she have been so stupid to think that her baby would be all right after an evolution?

After making the call, Ken sat next to her and took her hand. He looked down at her and she noticed he was still wearing his Kaiser uniform but his hair was smooth and chin length again. He also had a very human look about his eyes. They were filled with guilt.

"This is my fault." He mumbled.

"No," she breathed, "It's mine. I was stupid for thinking the baby and I would be all right after evolving."

"But if I hadn't…"

"We can go around this subject for hours Ken and we will still blame ourselves."

He nodded. There was a knock at the door and he quickly got up and ran to open it. He let the paramedics in and they put her on a stretcher and into the ambulance.

Once they got to the hospital, Ken sat down in the corridor and opened his D-terminal. He hesitated and then finally began typing a short message.

_Kouen is in the Tamachi hospital. Something is wrong with the baby. Come quickly. _

_Ken._

He sent the message to everyone and then made his way back into the delivery room. He started to put on the gown and mask when a doctor turned to him and said, "I'm afraid you are going to have to leave. There's a problem with the delivery."

"What is it?" Ken asked sharply.

"The baby is breach. We would usually do a C-section in this situation, but it's already in the birth canal, which means it's in distress. Because of the irregular heartbeat we think the umbilical cord may be wrapped around it's neck."

"Oh God." Ken breathed, all the blood suddenly draining from his face.

He felt the doctor shunt him out the room and into the corridor.

He sat down on one of the chairs and held his head in his hands, trying hard not to throw up. He knew this was dangerous and that both Kouen and his nephew were in a dangerous state. A birth like this would mean a lot of blood loss on Kouen's part and her baby might be born stillborn. He sighed and suddenly looked up. The Chosen had arrived. He stood up and looked from them to his feet. Daisuke stepped forward first.

"How is she?" He asked the question as if there had been nothing in between. No possession of the Kaiser on Ken's part, no fight, as if they had being friends this whole time.

"Not good." He stated quietly. "Both Kouen and the baby are in distress."

"I should have stopped her evolving." Daisuke cursed to himself.

Yamato turned to Daisuke sharply and frowned, "She evolved? Why would she do that…?" he asked angrily but got a stern look from Hikari to drop the subject. As if to explain, Takeru looked from his brother to Ken and back again and Yamato understood.

Ken turned and began to walk away, "You're all here now. I better go."

Miyako ran to him this time, just as he threw off his Kaiser cape. "Ken, wait."

He turned slowly to her, making sure not to lock eyes with her.

"She wants you here. We all do. We've missed you."

He looked at her hands. They were shaking and they were scared. He remembered after she had gotten out of her prison cell at Osamu's base, her hands looked painfully scabbed. Finally her words reached his ears and he snorted with bitterness.

"Yeah. Right." He said bitterly with a glance at Takeru.

"Don't take what he thinks personally Ken, you know how much he hates Darkness. He hates what the Dark Seed did to you, not you personally."

She took his hand and placed it in hers. Finally he looked up into her eyes.

"How can you forgive me so easily?"

"Because I love you."

He suddenly had the sensation that there was nothing under him and he fell to his knees. He clutched his head in his hands and began sobbing.

"She can't die Miyako! I don't want to feel that again! I don't want to feel!"

She bent down and wrapped her arms around him.

"She'll be okay Ken, I know she will be."

"Who invited them?" Ryo's angry voice said from behind them.

Miyako and Ken looked around to see a hoard of reporters from various television stations and newspapers. Ken frowned and looked at Miyako for an explanation.

She sighed angrily and shook her head, "They've been hounding us for months now, trying to get information on you and Kouen…they won't leave her alone either. They want details on the son of our Ex-Tyrant. It's sick."

Ken scowled at the media circus in front of him. He grew up in front of the camera along with his brother. He was famous and not all for good reasons either, but to hound Kouen and his unborn Nephew made him feel sick with anger.

One reporter with long brown hair and a red skirt-suit spotted Ken and lunged forward with a microphone.

"Ken! You're back! Where have you been all this time and why are you wearing what looks like the uniform the Kaiser used to wear?"

Another male reporter lunged forward, "Can you tell us about Kouen? Why is she here? Is there something wrong with the baby?"

At that moment, Ryo, Yamato, Daisuke and Takeru stepped in front of Ken and Miyako and told the media crew where they could shove their microphones.

Ken couldn't believe them, making a living on someone else's tragedies was so wrong and disgusting it made him want to be physically ill. How had Kouen being coping with this all this time?

A pang of guilt hit him again. He'd been gone, left her alone to deal with all this, it wasn't fair.

What seemed like hours later, the doctor stuck his head out the door and looked around. When he spotted Ken he said, "She's asking for you." Then he spotted the media behind them and muttered about getting security down here.

Ken, shaking, got to his feet and looked in the room. To his great relief, Kouen was awake and holding a small bundle in her arms. Her brow was sweaty and she looked very pale but otherwise she was beaming. He slowly walked closer and looked down at his nephew. The baby was small and had big violet eyes that stared at Ken as if knowing exactly who he was. Tears suddenly sprang to his eyes and he smiled widely.

"That's the first time you've smiled since Osamu died." She croaked.

"Can I hold him?" Ken asked.

She nodded and he took Sam in his arms. Ken glanced at Kouen and saw she was asleep. A nurse came to the bed and took the baby from Ken and then said, "She needs to rest. She lost quite a lot of blood; it's a miracle that she's still here. We'll be moving her to the recovery ward now, you can see her when she wakes up."

Ken nodded and left the room, feeling happy for the first time in years.

Everyone looked up at him with mixed expressions. He avoided their gaze and said, "She's going to be okay. She's sleeping now but we can see her later on."

They all nodded and so he turned and walked away down the corridor. He wasn't sure where he was going but he just needed to get away from his friends. He didn't know what they were thinking and he didn't really want to know. He just wanted to forget what he had done. He wanted to forget everything between his brother's death and the birth of his nephew. He turned into a bathroom and looked into the mirror. Despite himself, tears began to form in his eyes. The thought of his nephew, Sam, stirred mixed emotions in him. A pang of guilt filled his gut, 'Sam should have a father.' He thought to himself. 'I wish you could see him Osamu. He's got your eyes. You'd be so proud.'

Tears crawled down his pale cheeks and fell to the basin below.

'I'll take care of him, Osamu. I'll protect him with my life. I'll make sure he doesn't go through what we went through.'

He bent down and cupped the running water with his hands. He splashed his face and then dried it with a towel. He took a deep breath and turned to the door. He walked down the corridor and met up with his friends again. They all looked at him expectantly, as if they already knew what he was going to say.

"I'm sorry." He stated looking into their eyes. "There is no excuse for what I did and there was no real reason for it. I made some bad choices and some horrible mistakes and I have paid for most of them and undoubtedly will pay for the rest. Things got out of control and I'm sorry. It's not enough to say that, but it's all I can say right now. I'll understand if you never want to talk to me again."

"Ken," Miyako pleaded but Daisuke cut in.

"Ken, we don't hate you if that's what you think. We know you've been through a lot lately and we understand that the wheels fell off the bus but you don't have to push us away. We forgive you."

Ken looked down and nodded, "Thank you."

* * *

"Thank you Yamato." Kouen yawned as he took the six-day-old Sam from her so she could put her bag down.

"So Ken's moving in here with you and Shinsei will still be living here?" he questioned as he sat down next to her on the couch.

She nodded, brushing her red bangs out of her eyes.

"He's picking up his stuff now." She reached to take her son back from Yamato, "He didn't want to see his parents but I told him it would be the best thing to get it out the way now, instead of leaving it for a while. I'm so surprised he's still standing, what with all he's been through."

Yamato nodded, "You should have seen him at the hospital Kouen. He looked so worried about you and Sam. It was like he was a child again. Like when he was first Chosen, just a scared little kid."

Kouen smiled sadly, "He _is_ just a scared little kid, Yamato."

* * *

Ken placed another shirt in his suitcase and looked around. His mother entered his room and petted Wormmon on the head before looking at Ken.

"Are you sure about this Ken?" she asked quietly.

There was an unsettling tension in the air.

"I think it would be best." He replied without looking at her. "This way I can take care of both Kouen and Sam."

"Ken, you're eighteen," his father's voice entered the room. "You're too young to be a father, or act the part anyway."

This time Ken did look up, into his father's eyes, "I grew up a long time ago papa. And Sam needs a father figure in his life, I feel I need to do this."

"Ken, we don't blame you for Osamu's death, don't blame yourself…"

"Don't blame myself? _I_ killed him!" Ken yelled incredulously and it felt good to get it out. "I did it! _I'm_ the reason he's dead!"

"Ken," his mother sobbed, "I know you didn't want to, but he wasn't himself anymore. It was kinder, what you did, it was kinder for him."

"I know, but I still feel…feel, God, I don't know what I feel, but I just have to do this."

He closed up his bag and hugged his mother, "I'll visit, and I'll bring Sam."

She nodded and he turned to his father. To his slight surprise, his father wrapped him in an embrace.

Ken pulled away and picked up Wormmon before leaving.

* * *

"I feel like I'm kicking you out Yamato." Kouen sighed after hugging him.

"No, I said I would stay with you until the baby was born and that was the deal. If Ken wasn't moving in, I would have insisted staying to help you, but he needs to do this I think."

Kouen nodded and closed the door when Yamato left. She turned around and headed to the nursery. She stopped in the doorway when she saw Shinsei standing by the crib, staring down at Sam. Kouen felt fixated on the young girl for reasons she never questioned. Shinsei was a powerful child; just a girl of sixteen but with a burden larger than any adult would ever carry. She was an oracle and her very name meant 'divination'. A couple of years ago, Kouen would not have wanted to be in the same room as Shinsei, but now Kouen felt responsible for her, or even a connection of some sort. Perhaps it was the maternal instinct she had now. It was funny, Kouen had entered the room, bent on questioning Shinsei about why she would allow her to evolve if she knew both her and Sam would be in danger, but now, she looked at her, she felt a deep pity.

She walked into the room and looked at Shinsei. She saw tiny, shining tears fall down her cheeks. She frowned and placed a hand on the pale girl's hand.

"Shinsei?" Kouen inquired, "What's wrong?"

Shinsei looked up at Kouen, her piercing blue eyes boring into Kouen's soul, "He's very lucky."

"Sam?"

She nodded, "He has a mother who loves him."

"Shinsei…"

"I see them you know. My parents. They have a child now. She's going to look a bit like me. She'll have brown eyes though."

"Shinsei…"

"I know they didn't give me up for adoption because they didn't love me, they just couldn't afford me at the time and my gift was too much for them."

Kouen turned to Shinsei, her heart full of emotion and wrapped her arms around the girl.

"I know you were scared of me before, Kouen, but thank you for taking care of me now." She whispered as tears rolled down her face.

"It's okay Shinsei."

The girl pulled away and looked into Kouen's eyes again, "You want to know why I said you should evolve."

Kouen nodded, knowing it was futile to argue with her.

"I saw Sam before you even knew you were pregnant. I saw Ken becoming the Kaiser before he even killed Osamu. And I saw your difficult labor and how it would be brought on. What I also saw was how Ken would come back to us. He realized that if he carried on as the Kaiser, he could loose even more people he cared about. I could not interfere with that."

"I'm glad you didn't."

They turned to see Ken standing in the doorway. A shadow of a smile was on his face as he walked to the crib and looked down at his sleeping nephew.

"Are you okay?" Kouen asked him.

"You were right, facing my parents was the best thing." He sighed, "It would be easier if they did blame me you know? If they were angry, but they're not. They forgive me."

"It's your turn to forgive yourself." She soothed.

"You haven't yet, have you?"

"I'm getting there."

* * *

"I haven't seen you in quite a while, Kouen…"

Kouen lifted her head as her therapist spoke. She was seated in a comfortable, straight back leather armchair, while Kouen sat on a soft blue sofa opposite her, Sam in her arms.

"But that can be expected what with everything that's happened in the past few years." She finished.

She was a kind looking woman in her early forties with short auburn hair and big brown eyes.

"Have you been sleeping?" she asked Kouen.

"Not really. Not for a long time actually. My medication ran out a long time ago and for obvious reasons I couldn't get another prescription filled out."

Dr. Tenshei nodded and made a note on her note pad, "I'll give you another prescription for some sleeping pills. Are you still getting headaches?"

Kouen shifted her arm and glanced down at the silver ring on her wrist. "No, not anymore really."

"Good." She shifted in her seat, "Now, tell me how you are, Kouen? Last time I had a session with you, you were just out of hospital and still dealing with the voices and visions. Now, you seems much more together and have a beautiful son."

Kouen took a deep breath, "I am doing much better. But I worry about Ken. He's…closed off. He doesn't want to deal with anything, face anything. I'm not sure how to be around him, what to say."

"Do you want to send him to me for a session?"

"He won't come." She sighed deeply. "I just…don't want to loose him too, you know?"

* * *

Kouen lay awake in her bed, crying silently.

'Sam should have a father. Why couldn't I save you Osamu?'

Suddenly she heard her son crying in the next room. She got up and walked to the nursery to tend to Sam, not noticing that she was not the only one suffering with insomnia.

Ken had been looking at the books in the lounge, trying to find one that would lull him to sleep, when he made his way back to his room and to his horror saw a tall woman with long white hair, dressed in red standing in front of his computer.

His eyes widened and at first he thought she was a reporter who had somehow snuck into the apartment, "Hey! Who the hell are you?"

She turned her head slowly to him, violet glasses covered her eyes and her red lips smiled, "Hello Ken." She drawled.

"How do you know my name?" he gasped and then felt silly for asking that question, who didn't know his name?

"I know a lot about you Kaiser. You could have had it all, but you gave it up for this."

She indicated to the photo of Kouen and Sam on his desk.

"Pity."

He made to grab at her but she vanished through the computer sitting on his desk. Ken's deep frown suddenly shifted to shock and it was Sam's cries that pulled him out of his revere. He quickly ran over to the nursery and saw Kouen trying to pacify him.

Wormmon looked up at his partner and friend, "Ken? Who was that woman?"

"I don't know Wormmon, but I think she was trouble."

* * *

(AN)

Right well that was a pretty short chapter, but this is a short story. It's about six chapters long and just filling the gap between "Doppelgangland" and "Cruel Angel's Thesis". Okay, some rules about reviewing, please give me some critique. Say what you hate, what you love what needs improving and so on. Don't ask me to update because I will don't worry. I do this for practice because writing is one of the things I want to do as a career and giving me info on my writing helps me. Thanks. Till the next time…


	3. Chapter 3

"Sins of the Father"

3. 'Falling in and out of place'

_"And I can't breath,_

_When you cry, _

_But I'll be there to hold you tight._

_And I would kill, _

_I would fight_

_To keep you close, _

_I'll keep singing the same way._

_I won't live if you died_

_If I can feel you in the winds_

_And this is me, _

_This is my life."_

_ (Hidden track on Year of the Spider 'Same old song') Cold_

"Morning." Kouen mumbled to Ken when he entered the study. She didn't turn to look at him, but kept her eyes focused on the computer screen in front of her.

"What are you doing?" he asked interestedly and sat down next to her.

"Reading an e-mail from my mother." She replied bitterly. "She says congratulations on having Sam, adds I should send her a picture and then asks how much money I need this month." She sighed heavily. "Just once I wish I could read that she's coming to visit me. Sam is her grandson and she doesn't even want to see him! Just like she doesn't want to see me." She put her forehead in her hand, "God, I should have known. She doesn't want anything to do with me or my son."

"At least you know she still cares about you. She wouldn't send you money if she didn't." Ken reasoned.

"I don't want guilt money, Ken. What I want is a job so I can take care of my self and my son, but now that I have a baby to take care of, it's going to be even harder to find a job. The waitress job wasn't too bad until I got too heavily pregnant for the uniform." She rolled her eyes and then looked up suddenly at Ken as if seeing him for the first time, "What's wrong? You're up really early this morning and you didn't have to feed a baby."

He looked hesitant but plunged on; "There was a woman here last night, in my room."

"What?" she yelled sharply, "Who? Was she a reporter or something?"

"I don't know who she was, but I don't think she was human. And it didn't seem she wanted to ask any questions about us or Sam."

"Then what was she doing here?"

"I'm not sure, but she knew who I was, she knew quite a bit about me too. I think she came from the digital world, she used the port to get out the apartment and I'm pretty sure that's how she got in."

"You think she wants something from you?" Kouen asked darkly.

"I have a feeling she might, but I'm not sure what."

Kouen sighed, "I thought all this was over with, but I guess it's not."

"I'm heading to the Digital world soon with Wormmon to start cleaning up the mess I made, would you like to join us?"

A small smiled came to Kouen's lips, "I think Sam might like it. Let me go get showed and dressed and we'll be on our way."

Ken nodded and watched her get up and leave the room before going into the nursery to look at his nephew. He smiled down at the infant and then picked him up. He rocked the baby in his arms and then sat down in the living room with him. He sat there, unaware of anytime passing, watching the tiny innocent child sleep. It was only when Kouen cleared her throat that he came out of his revere.

She was smiling, "Are you ready?"

He nodded and passed Sam to Kouen. "Doesn't Shinsei want to come?"

Kouen shook her head, "I checked earlier, she wants to spend the day meditating."

Ken nodded his head and they picked up a bag from the nursery, (full of necessities for Sam) and then went through the port.

They looked around and Dark Towers seemingly covered the land like weeds among roses.

"We should have asked for the other's help." Wormmon sighed.

"It's not their responsibility." Ken said firmly and Kouen looked at him sadly but said nothing.

"You know," she said suddenly, "I could get rid of a lot of these with very little effort if I evolved."

"No." Ken stated, "This is something I need to do."

She nodded and sat down under a tree, "Well, we'll be right here when you're done."

He nodded and flew off on Stingmon's back.

------

"You know, we should have asked Ken if he wanted to help us fix the Village of Beginnings." Hikari said suddenly as she painted the wall of one of the small houses.

"He's got a lot on his plate right now, the last thing he needs is reminders of his mistakes here, along with his brother's mistakes too." Takeru replied.

"But maybe helping to fix things would make him feel better." Miyako insisted hesitantly, dropping her hand to her side. Clutched in her fingers was a photo of her and Ken years ago, a lifetime it seemed. It was as if their lives were divided into two parts: Pre-Kaiser and Post-Kaiser.

She was sure she wasn't the only one having nightmares of the torment she had gone through when Osamu was the Kaiser. For what felt like a lifetime but was only a few years, she had being held captive in the Kaiser's dungeon, treated worse than a slave and starved of affection and love from her family, friends and mostly, Ken, the love of her life. All to punish Ken for being Chosen.

She felt unsure of anything at the moment, considering the fact that she hadn't really seen Ken in nearly a year. After Osamu was overthrown, Ken retreated into himself and turned into the new Kaiser and ran away to the digital world, away from her. Right now she was wondering if they would ever be close again. It was ironic how the only thing that had kept her alive was the thought of seeing Ken again but now that she could see him anytime, she felt like they he was worlds away from her.

"Maybe." Takeru shrugged.

"Should I send him a message?" Daisuke questioned but no answer came his way for at that moment, a very small, but very powerful digimon came pelting at the group.

"Why is Thundermon attacking us?" Nefertimon yelled.

"Good question!" Halsemon cried after ducking the Digimon's attacks.

Suddenly Stingmon came out of nowhere and aimed a Spiking strike attack at the small digimon. Within seconds, Thundermon was no more; data flew in every direction and disappeared, as if the digimon had never existed to begin with.

Miyako's eyes went wide with shock. She spun around and saw Ken standing upon a roof of a small house, one they had just finished rebuilding.

"What did you do that for?" she cried at him.

He jumped down after Wormmon devolved into his arms. "He wasn't real Miyako." He stated.

"Yes he was!" she yelled, "This isn't a game Ken! You know that, that was a living creature!"

"Miyako, calm down and listen to me for a-"

"I thought you had changed," she yelled with tears in her eyes, "that you swore you would never be like the Kaiser ever again, but you lied!" she sobbed and turned from him.

His mouth fell open and his temper suddenly flared up.

"Fine. Don't listen to me." He growled bitterly, "You obviously have a formed opinion of me stuck in your head, who am I to try to convince you otherwise."

He turned to walk away.

"Ken!" Daisuke yelled to stop him, but Ken walked on and out of sight.

He sighed and turned to the lavender haired teenager, "What's wrong with you?"

"Don't start with me Daisuke." She spat at him, angrily wiping the tears from her face.

_------_

_"What are you thinking about?" Osamu's voice filled her ears. _

_"Cutting my hair actually." Kouen answered absently and tossed her long locks over her shoulder. _

_"Really?" he asked taken aback, "Why would you do that?"_

_"For a change I guess."_

_"But you've been growing it for years."_

_"I know." She shrugged. _

_"You'll miss it." He stated in a warning tone. _

_"Yeah, I probably will."_

_He ran his fingers through it, "I'll miss it too."_

_"You will?" she asked sweetly. _

_"I love the way it falls around you when you sleep. You look like a goddess." _

_She smiled at him and rested her head in his lap, the two of them under a large tree in the human world. It was a perfect spring day, with birds twittering in the trees and the sent of fresh flowers in the air. _

_"Then I won't cut it. Not unless you want me too." She muttered sleepily. _

_He frowned down at her, "It's your hair Kouen, and you can cut it if you want. I don't own it or you. You're free to do what you want with it."_

_"I know that." Her voice was light as air, "But I love you and my body is yours, as is my heart. I want to make you happy, if you are sad, I am sad."_

_His face broke into a smile, "Then I'll never be sad, because I don't want to hear you cry, it breaks my heart." He sighed heavily and suddenly became very distracted. _

_She lifted her head and sat up to look at him. He had a far off look about him. _

_She frowned, "Osamu? What is it?"_

_"Don't you sometimes wish that you could just escape?" he replied distantly. _

_"Escape what?"_

_"Everything. This world, the pressures, everything."_

_She sighed and looked down, "Yes. I wish all the pain and suffering would go away."_

_He looked seriously into her eyes, "How is your father?"_

_"The Chemotherapy isn't working, they say it's spread too far."_

_"I'm sorry." He choked. _

_"Me too." Pearly tears flooded her eyes and she tried to keep them back as he wrapped his arms around her._

"Kouen?"

The redhead opened her eyes and looked up at Ken.

"You fell asleep." He stated and she pushed herself up and put her back against the tree.

She nodded, "The Electmon said they would watch Sam for me." She looked closely at him, "Are you okay?"

He shook his head, "That woman, the one who was in my room last night, I saw her. She's an evil digimon and she has the power to turn Dark Towers into digimon clones or something. I killed one in front of Miyako and the others and Miyako nearly had a fit and wouldn't listen to me when I tried to explain."

"Ken, she's just confused right now. Trust me, she'll come around. Things are just awkward for her right now and she doesn't know how to trust you yet or what to think."

Ken released a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding and put his hand in his pocket, "I really blew it didn't I Kouen? I pretty much got rid of everyone who cared about me. If it wasn't for you and Wormmon, I'd have no one."

"That's not true Ken."

He sighed and dumped himself next to her. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back. Wormmon scuttled onto his lap and Ken absently stroked his head.

Kouen looked closely at him and then put her hand on his hand. He opened his eyes and looked at her. She had a deep seriousness in her green eyes. It seemed to tug at something inside him.

He frowned, "What is it?"

"Ken, you're not alone. You'll never be alone. Even if you tried to push everyone away, you would never be alone because Miyako and Daisuke and Wormmon and myself will always be there for you."

A flicker of a smile flew across his face, "How come you're so strong?"

"Between you and me Ken, I'm not. I'm just this scared little girl who doesn't know what she's doing with her life. She doesn't know how to take care of herself, so how is she going to take care of a baby?"

He shook his head, "You took care of me didn't you?"

Before she could stop herself the sentence flew from her, "Yeah, and look how well that turned out, I let you become a tyrant."

He looked slightly wounded at that and she gasped as her hand flew to her mouth, "Oh God, Ken, I didn't mean…I just…"

"It's okay. Anyway, you had no control over that anyway, not even I did."

A sudden look of revelation came to her and he squinted at her, "What is it? What are you thinking?"

"Something Ken said, the other Ken. He said that all this was happening, that it was slightly different, but it had happened in his world. What if, things are panning out the way they did in the other world? If that's the case, we can contact them and find out what's going on, who that woman is, who planted the Dark Seed in you and Osamu…"

He tilted his head at her, "Do you think it's possible?"

She nodded, "Ryo has the codes. It could save a lot of time and energy if we knew what we are facing."

He nodded and stood up, scooping Wormmon up at the same time.

"We should tell the others what we're up to." She stated, picking Sam up and thanking the Electmon for taking care of him.

"I suppose we should." Ken murmured, a bitter resentment in his tone.

------

"It's possible for me to get a port open to their world, but communicating will be a bit different to what you had in mind Ken."

Ryo sat in front of the computer in Kouen's apartment and clicked away at the keyboard. "You know it would really help if Koushirou were here."

"I tried to contact him, but he's on business somewhere and apparently he's in meetings all day." Kouen sighed and rubbed her temples.

She looked up at Ken, "Did you get hold of everyone?"

"I sent a message to Daisuke and asked him to pass it on." He turned to Ryo, "What did you mean when you said it wouldn't work the way I had in mind?"

"Instead of transporting the Ken from the other world here, we'll be able to talk to him as if we were talking through a web cam. We'll see each other through the ports."

"Well, that's fine I guess."

Ken shrugged and looked down when Wormmon scuttled into the room.

"Ken, Daisuke and the others are here."

Ken nodded and left the room to open the door for the Chosen Children. He bowed slightly and welcomed them inside but he avoided Miyako's eye and felt an odd sinking sensation in his stomach when he looked at her. It was a strange feeling of anger with her as well as shame and he didn't know how to react to it but before he could figure it out, she pulled him aside and tried to make eye contact with him, "Ken, I want to know what happened this afternoon. Why did you kill that digimon…?"

He sighed, "It wasn't a real digimon, it was a clone or something, I'm not too sure but it was evil."

"How do you -?"

"Guys, the connection is ready!" Kouen announced to everyone in the living room. She guided them all to the study where they all gathered around the computer.

"Hopefully this should work. I need one of you guys to open a port as if you were opening a digital port." Ryo said and Daisuke stepped forward to do the honors.

The computer screen lit up, then faded and the screen held what looked like the digital port but in the window everyone could see what looked like Ken's room.

"Hello?" Ryo said hopefully.

To their amazement, Ken's doppelganger stepped in front of the screen and sat down at his computer looking thoroughly bewildered.

"What the…?" he muttered and then squinted into the screen. "Ryo? Is that you? What's going on…?"

"Hi Ken. Sorry to bother you but we need your help." Ryo indicated to the others behind him and Ken's eye-line shifted to meet their gaze.

Ken looked a little awkward and then said, "Uh, hi guys. What can I help you with?"

"Well, I think you should talk to your doppelganger for this."

Ryo got up out the chair and let Ken sit in front of the computer so he was facing his double.

"Remember when you were here how you told Kouen that things were happening in a similar way as to how they were happening in your world?"

Ken nodded so his double went on, "Well, things might be doing that here in the order in how it happened in your world." He hesitated, "I, um, I became the Kaiser and made a digimon called-"

"Chimeramon." Ken finished for him.

He nodded, "And then last night, a strange woman was in Kouen's apartment, in my room… She was in my room and then spoke to me and then went through the digi-port. Then today I saw her turn a Dark Tower into a digimon. What I need to know is, what's coming Ken? Is this what happened in your world?"

Ken nodded, a grave expression on his face, "Yes. The woman who turned the Control, er, Dark Tower into a digimon, was she wearing a red dress and had long white hair?"

"Yes."

"That's Arukenimon, she might called herself something else in your world, I'm not sure but all the same, she's a digimon who works for a guy called Owikawa Yukio. Long story short, he's being possessed by Myotismon."

Ken went into a detailed account of everything that happened leading up to the point of Malomyotismon's defeat. He talked about how Mummymon and Arukenimon used the Dark Towers to create Blackwargreymon and how he tried to destroy all the Destiny Stones and how that led to a ripple in the fabric dividing the two worlds and digimon getting lost in the human world. He explained how while they were sending the digimon back to the digital world, Arukenimon and Mummymon were kidnapping children to plant the Dark Seeds into them so Owikawa could go to a world in-between the digital world and the real world, a world made of wishes.

"So basically if we find this Owikawa guy and stop him before he can do any real harm, things will be fine?" Takeru asked suddenly.

"I guess," Ken sighed, "but it's not that simple. How will you stop him? You can't kill him, he's human, being possessed by a digimon."

"Well, what if we stop Arukenimon and Mummymon?"

"You can try." Ken looked to Kouen, "But if they create Blackwargreymon before you stop them, don't kill him. He will be a key element in closing the rips and gates between the two worlds. But by all means, stop him from destroying the Destiny Stones."

"But surely if we kill Blackwargreymon, we won't need to protect the Destiny Stones?" Hikari questioned.

Ken sighed and caught himself. She was right, but he didn't like the idea of them killing Blackwargreymon. In the end, he had a lot of respect for the digimon and saw a lot of himself in the digimon too.

"I suppose, but he could be a great ally if you get him on your side. Just try to destroy all the Dark Towers as soon as you can, that should release Azulongmon."

"Okay, thanks Ken." Ryo said into the screen, "You've been a big help."

"No problem. Anytime you guys need help, don't hesitate to ask." He looked at Ryo, "So are you living there full time now?"

Ryo grinned, "I figured I would hang around for a while."

"Thank you Ken." His double said quietly.

"You're welcome, and Ken, it will get better, I promise."

Kouen stepped forward before anyone could say goodbye to Ken and asked if she could have a private word with the doppelganger. They all nodded and left the room, closing the door behind them.

She sat down in front of the computer and looked seriously at Ken through the port.

"How are you Kouen?" he asked solemnly.

She sighed, "I'm not really sure, yet. I just had a son, I named him Sam."

Ken smiled, his eyes becoming alight, "What does he look like?"

"I saw baby pictures of Osamu once, Sam looks exactly like him."

"Congratulations."

"Thanks."

"So I take it you wanted to discuss something…more important than this…?"

She nodded, "I'm worried about Ken. He's been through a lot over the past few years and at the moment, he's acting strong but I can tell he's in denial. He hasn't even begun to cope with it, start healing, you know? How was it when…when you…?"

"I can't tell you Kouen. I haven't gone through half of what your Ken has gone through. I blamed myself for Sam's death, I wasn't the one who actually killed him…in Ken's case, he did kill his brother. He went through hell before that and then he became the Kaiser? Right now I can only tell you the tip of the ice burg of what he's feeling."

She sighed deeply, "I'm trying to get him to talk about it…"

"Just be patient with him, Kouen. It will take some time and don't be afraid to be forceful with him. I remember when Yolei slapped me across the face once because I was feeling sorry for myself, it really brought me to my senses."

She nodded.

"And how are you doing Kouen?"

She looked a little taken aback at he question. People had asked her before but she had just shrugged and said that she was doing okay, getting by, surviving. But because Ken, a person from another world asked it, it showed that he truly did understand what she was going through. Suddenly unable to keep it all in right now, she broke into tears.

"I'm don't know. I'm scared…of everything. I nearly lost Ken and it…I just…I nearly lost it."

"That's understandable, Kouen. You just have to take it one day at a time. I wish I could say something that would make it all better but…well Davis is usually better at that sort of stuff."

She gave a small sob combined with a giggle, "Thanks Ken, just for listening."

He gave a half-smile, "Anytime. And anytime you need help with everything that's going on right now, don't hesitate to call on me."

She nodded, "Thanks Ken."

He nodded and she turned off the computer, wiped her eyes and then joined everyone in the lounge.

"So what should we do?" Miyako asked. She seemed to have forgotten the argument with Ken, or what had being said in the conversation between the two Ken's had given her some peace of mind.

"I guess we should go to the digital world and start destroying Dark Towers." Daisuke replied.

------

"It's late." Miyako said quietly as she walked along the street, the light of a lamp illuminating her face, "What are you doing here?"

Ken turned to her and then looked back at the Base. "I could ask you the same question I guess."

She stopped and stood next to him, pressing her lips together and then looking at the door of the large building.

"I couldn't sleep." She finally said.

"Yeah…me too."

"So you came here?" she asked gently.

He gave a nod, "I come here every so often, to try and figure things out. I guess I'm looking for some…answer as to why this happened to Osamu. What the Dark Seed really was…anything that will help me sleep at night."

She looked up and watched him run his hands through his hair, looking so broken and destroyed. In the light, his sleeve had shifted, exposing his wrist and she saw scars and recent cuts along the inside of his arm.

Frowning deeply, she grabbed at his wrist and pushed up his sleeve, staring at the self-inflicted wounds. He tugged his arm away from her and his expression was one of shocked embarrassment.

Her eyes filled with tears, "Ken…"

"Don't." he interrupted her and looked away, "Please, just…don't."

Finally, her old fire burned within her and she was awoken from her stupor. The man she loved deeply was dying inside and he didn't want to face it, so she would make him face it. She lifted her hand and before she had even finished the thought in her head, her hand had connected with Ken's cheek.

Eyes wide, he turned to her, rubbing the spot where she had slapped him.

"Don't stand there and tell me, 'don't'. I love you, Ken, but I will not watch you suffer alone. I will not stand by and let you destroy yourself and punish yourself."

"Miyako, you don't know what I've been through…"

"And you don't know what I've been through."

He looked up at her with a small frown.

"Have you forgotten, Ken? Osamu imprisoned me for loving you, he tortured me and starved me and worst of all, he kept me from being with you. How long was I in that hellhole? I was cold and tired and I didn't think I would ever see anyone I loved ever again. Every single day I felt like I was going to die, but that would have being kinder. You kept me alive, the thought that I would get out again and see you and be with you, that's what kept me alive." She paused for a moment, "I may not know what you're going through Ken, but the things I saw and heard and did in that dungeon…I went through my own personal hell and I had to deal with that on my own because you weren't there."

His eyes had filled with tears suddenly and he reached out to grab her hand, "Miyako, I…"

"I'm not finished." She snapped, "I love you, okay? And I know that what I went through is not your fault. But I want to help you, I will be here for you, but you have to promise me that you'll talk to me, that you'll let me help you deal with all this."

He stared at her for a long time, her words echoing through him and suddenly, he realized what an amazing young woman she really was. He nodded his head at her and then wrapped his arms around her, burring his face in the crook of her neck. But no tears flowed.

"I'm so sorry, Miyako."

"It's okay." She cooed and rubbed his back. Two lovers under a street lamp dealing with something no one, young or old should have to deal with, ever.

------

Kouen stood in front of her bathroom mirror, fixated on her body. She hadn't realized it but she had been transfixed for at least ten minutes. Her eyes were glazed over as if she were seeing passed her reflection and she was indeed seeing something else.

It had been a long day for Ken and the others, who were steadily destroying the Dark Towers, but Ken still insisted that she did not help. She knew it was because he was worried about her evolving after the last time she did it, but something in her knew that it was more than okay for her to do it now.

Suddenly without thinking, still in her trance like state, she picked up a pair of scissors and began cutting off her long curly hair. She hacked it off so all that was left was an uneven shoulder length head of hair.

Ken, who had just come back from his nighttime stroll stepped into the doorway to check on her and gasped.

"Kouen! What are you doing?"

She started and dropped the scissors. She spun to look at him and then grasped her hair looking down at her fallen locks on the floor. Suddenly she burst into tears and fell to her knees.

Ken ran to her aid and wrapped her arms around her. She was shaking and rocking back and forth. It scared him terribly because the last time he had seen her like this, she had ended up in a mental institution. Suddenly Ken realized that she was only wearing her underwear, so he pulled her bathrobe from the door and wrapped her in it. Then he led her to the bed and pulled back the covers for her. She climbed in and curled up into a little ball.

He sat gently next to her, "Kouen, what happened?"

"I don't know. I was seeing these images. Images of fire and wings and feathers and I could hear a voice but I didn't know what it was saying. And it felt like my hair was on fire." She began sobbing into her pillow while Ken stoked her head until she fell asleep.

He got up and closed the door behind him, walking into the nursery; he looked down at Sam. "I hope you never have to go through what we went through Sam."

He sighed and turned to see Shinsei standing in the doorway.

"You should get some sleep Ken, you have a big day ahead of you."

Ken nodded, not taking too much notice of Shinsei's prophecy, as he was used to her telling him things like this. He walked to his room and shut his door. He picked Wormmon up and lay down in his bed. Surprisingly he fell asleep rather quickly, even with everything that was plaguing his mind. It had been a very long day but strangely enough, his thoughts kept going back to one single thing. The conversation with his double this afternoon had sparked it. The Dark Seed. If everything went according to Owikawa's plan, then others would be infected with the evil spawn too. It made him sick to think about and when his nightmares awoke him with fresh memories of the day when he and Osamu had both contracted the Dark Seed he sat bolt upright and swore he would do everything to stop that from happening.

------

(AN) Okay, well, it's being a while since I've let a chapter of this story out and I did that for a reason. The entire story is finished but it's always bugged me. I've never being happy with it and as I've being editing it and proofreading, I just became more and more unsettled by it. So I held it back for a while and suddenly today I looked at it with fresh eyes and new ideas. Thanks to Akino Ame, who always inspires me, I sat down and found some more meat to add to the story. The chapters as still quite short but then, this is a filler story for 'Doppelgangland' and 'Cruel Angel's Thesis'.


	4. Female of the Species

"Sins of the Father"

4. 'The female of the species'

"_A tragedy with more damage than a soul should see,_

_And I do try to change him, _

_So hard not to blame him._

_Hold on tight, hold on tight. _

_I'm longing for love and the logical, _

_But he's only happy hysterical. _

_I'm waiting for some kind of miracle, _

_Waiting so long. _

_He's soft to the touch, but frayed at the ends he breaks,_

_He's never enough, and still he's more than I can take."_

_ 'Beautiful Disaster' Kelly Clarkson_

"Oh God!"

Ken sat bolt upright again in his bed and tossed the covers aside as he leapt out of his bed and ran down the hall. He burst into Kouen's room and found her in the bathroom again. She was muttering, 'Oh God' under her breath, over and over again and Ken faltered at the sight of her.

"What the hell?" he stammered and she turned to him, looking confused and very worried.

Her hair, which had been cut haphazardly last night was looking perfect as if the scissors had never come in contact with her long curly locks. She tossed her red hair over her shoulder and it came to her waste.

"How is this possible?" Ken asked.

Something seemed to dawn on her face as if she had the idea of what was going on with her all along but didn't really want to face it.

"Ken, this is going to sound gross, so I'm sorry, but last night, when you walked in on me in the bathroom, did you notice my stomach?"

Ken shook his head, "I was more concerned with your hair."

"I'd noticed it a few days ago but didn't really think of it until now. I don't have a single stretch mark on me. It looks as though I never even had a baby. Even my scar from where Osamu stabbed me is gone. And now my hair has grown back over night."

Ken frowned deeply, "Where are you going with this?"

"I think I may be almost immortal, or invincible or something."

"What?"

"Think about it Ken, twice already I should have died but I didn't. I think it's the Spirit, there's so much about it we don't know…" She trailed off at the look on his face.

"I'm going to do an experiment." She turned and picked up her razor. She bent it so the blade was exposed and before Ken could stop her, she pressed the razor into her flesh and her forearm began to bleed.

"Kouen!" Ken gasped but before he could say more he noticed that her skin was already repairing itself. "How…?"

"Phoenix Spirit." She stated gloomily. "Phoenix's are immortal."

"Kouen…"

They both looked to the door when they heard Sam crying.

"I'll get him, you call the others and tell them to meet us in the digital world so we can finish destroying the Dark Towers." Kouen stated and began to walk to the door.

"I already told you Kouen, I don't want you to…"

"Ken, you just saw what I saw, but what you didn't see is the visions I had last night. There's something there Ken, I can fix this, if you just let me."

He opened his mouth, he wanted to say it was his mess to clean up but he knew that if he hesitated, many more lives would be hurt in the long run and he did not need more death on his conscience. He nodded, defeated and walked to the phone.

------

Ken mentioned nothing to the others about what had happened the night before with his dreams and Kouen's moment of temporary insanity. He didn't want them to worry, at least not yet. He, however, was quietly obsessing over it.

Kouen turned to everyone, "I've never done this before so I don't know what's going to happen, but if something goes wrong, get out of here as fast as you can."

Daisuke turned to the redhead, "What exactly are you going to do Kouen? Ken didn't say over the phone."

"I'm going to Fusion Evolve using both Spirits."

"But why do you need more power?" Tailmon asked kindly.

"You'll see." Kouen said confidently.

She took a deep breath and then said, "Fusion Evolution!" For a moment she glowed white and when the light faded, a large Digimon was in her place, flying in the air. She was about as big as X-Veemon and she appeared to look like a Phoenix, with the exception that her body was human looking, in her gold body suit. "EmpressWarPhoenixmon!" Feathered wings and tail spread around her and a phoenix shaped beak was over her head like a helmet, covering her eyes. She let out a wild cry and the air around her seemed to shudder.

She looked down on the miles of Dark Towers and yelled, "Phoenix wave!" and a huge wave of fire blasted from her wings and flowed over the land in front of her, destroying every Dark Tower it touched for many miles but leaving the rest of the landscape free from harm.

The whole group looked up in awe of her and before they could cheer with happiness, EmpressWarPhoenixmon turned sharply to her right and glared at something in the far distance.

Ken yelled up to her, "What is it?"

She didn't turn to him, but instead kept her focus on whatever it was that had caught her attention. "Something powerful." She stated, "I can feel it." And without another word, she flew off with great speed in that direction.

"Hey!" Miyako yelled angrily, "Don't wait for us or anything!" she added sarcastically.

"We better follow her." Hikari sighed and turned to Tailmon, "Think you could fly me there?"

The cat-like digimon nodded and evolved into Angewoman.

Daisuke turned to Ken while the others evolved their digimon, "Are you coming?"

Ken nodded absently to his best friend and looked down at Wormmon.

They flew off searching for Kouen, and finally arrived near the Village of Beginnings.

They could see in the distance EmpressWarPhoenixmon hovering in the sky along with another large digimon. Two more digimon were there, though they were standing on the ground, looking up. One of them Ken recognized instantly.

"That must be Arukenimon." He muttered, "And that must be BlackWarGraymon."

They were about to fly closer when they saw Blackwargraymon throw a Terror Destroyer attack at EmpressWarPhoenixmon. With a swift attack of flames, she sent him to the ground and stood over him.

"I don't want to fight you. Apparently you want to find a worthy adversary to fight. You found her. However, I will not kill you, unless you give me good reason to do so. You have a purpose in this life, though you may not think it. Your time will come."

BlackWarGraymon looked up at her with intense defiance and just as swiftly as she hand done, knocked her to the ground. In a flash, both fighters were on their feet again and then up in the air. BlackWarGraymon lifted his arms, forming another 'Terror Destroyer' attack, while Kouen prepared another 'Phoenix Wave' attack. With an earth-moving cry, both of them threw their attacks at each other and met half way. A devastating explosion took place, causing everyone, including EmpressWarPhoenixmon and BlackWarGraymon to be thrown backwards. Kouen was the first to recover and she wasted no time in speeding toward BlackWarGraymon and by using her fist, which had erupted into flames, she landed a powerful blow to his gut sending him back further.

"Give up!" she yelled at him, "I could have killed you in a second if I wanted to, but I need you alive!"

She turned to Mummymon and Arukenimon, who were getting to their feet and dusting themselves off. "As for you two, I think things would be better if you were eliminated." But before she could attack, they had jumped into their Jeep and zoomed off. She could have easily gone after them, but instead she turned back to BlackWarGraymon, her hand pushing down on his throat. She gave him a hand to help him up.

"You say I have a purpose?" he asked, his deep voice sounding disbelieving.

She nodded, "Yes. You will be needed to save this world."

"But I thought my only purpose was to destroy it."

"Ironic isn't it?"

He nodded with a slight bow. He felt intense respect for her for some reason and did as she had told him. He buried the burning desire to destroy and fight and walked away from her. His demeanor was sad and lost. She had seen that expression before, twice. She ran forward and put a hand on his shoulder and he turned to her.

"You aren't a monster." She stated softly and kindly.

"I'm not real though. I'm made from Dark Towers. I have no heart, I have no meaning, I have nothing." He bowed his head slightly and made angry fists with his clawed hands.

"You are as real as I am. And no matter what anyone says, you do have a heart, the fact that you can feel this way, proves that fact. If you wish to help us, do so by destroying all the Dark Towers you can."

He looked up into her face and stared at her for a while, as if looking for something and then he nodded and turned from her once more, heading into the dense forest.

The others flew and landed near EmpressWarPhoenixmon stood.

"What happened?" Takeru asked as he climbed down from Angemon.

"We talked and he's on our side." She stated bluntly.

"At least now the Destiny Stones or whatever will be safe right?" Daisuke asked.

She nodded and looked around. "We better start getting rid of the rest of these Dark Towers."

In an instant, she flew up into the sky and sent out another 'Phoenix wave'.

"If she keeps this up," Hikari marveled, "all the Dark Towers will be destroyed today. That's amazing!"

"Yeah," Ken mumbled. He looked up into the sky, where EmpressWarPhoenixmon was hovering. He suddenly felt extremely angry with her and himself. He felt useless and she was the one to make him feel this way. This was his job, this was something he not only wanted to do, but needed to do. Sort of a healing process. He turned to walk away only to be stopped when a huge rumble in the sky stopped him. He turned and moved back to the others. They were all looking up into the sky and he realized why. A huge pale blue dragon with a marvelous long white beard was floating in the sky. His mouth dropped open, "Azulongmon."

"That is correct, Ken, well half correct, here, in this world, they call me Qinglongmon." The large dragon god boomed.

All the Chosen looked up at him as EmpressWarPhoenixmon landed softly on the ground and devolved.

"Thank you for releasing me." He said to not only Kouen but all of them, "I was trapped in limbo for a very long time and I thought I would never get out of there…it was very boring, I didn't even have anything to read."

"Does this mean," Takeru called out, "that everything is safe with the Digital world now?"

"I'm afraid not. You may have stopped a lot of terrible things from happening but sadly you did not stop everything. Destiny has a funny way of making things happen, no matter how much you try to stop it."

"You know what we know." Miyako interjected suddenly and everyone turned to her. "We have friends from another world who told us what was going to happen, but how do you know?"

The huge digimon chuckled, "You must be Miyako, not much gets past you. There are many things I know about, especially the Chosen Children and what goes on in their lives. I am a god after all." After a few minutes Qinglongmon had gone into his tale of how he was trapped in limbo and how Gennai had been restored to his young self. He also went on to tell them that Arukenimon and Mummymon were not the only threat.

"We're going to have to destroy it all aren't we?" Ken suddenly said darkly.

"What?" Daisuke questioned.

"Anything to do with the powers of darkness should be destroyed, or it will destroy us."

"I'm afraid it's not that simple Ken," Takeru informed him, "While I'm right there with you, I know it's not only impossible, but pointless as well. Without light there can't be darkness and without darkness, there can't be light."

"He is right." The huge dragon called, "Do not worry Ken, you will get your battle."

Suddenly he turned to look at Kouen, who for the most part was trying to look as inconspicuous as possible, as she felt widely out of place at the moment. She gasped when the set of four eyes lay on her. "As for you," his voice vibrated through her, "you have been a great assets to the Chosen and you freed me, for that I thank you."

She bowed and then looked up at him again. "You know who I am," It was a statement, not a question, "can you tell me anything about my Spirit?"

They could almost hear the god sigh, "Yes, your Spirit is one of the Guardians of a Digimon world. She is a god and a powerful one at that, though she is quite ruthless. Osamu traveled to that world to retrieve her Spirit which resided in a temple."

"She was never a corporeal form?"

"Only when needed, for battles, but for most of her life she was in a dormant state. That is how Osamu was able to capture her in his device. As I understand it, she has become quite a burden on you."

Kouen shifted and shrugged, "I got used to her, as I'm sure she got used to me." She looked around for a change of subject but thankfully Hikari came to her aid.

"How many digital worlds are there?"

"It is difficult to say Hikari, there are many worlds, running parallel to each other. Now, it is time that I go, I have many things to attend to, as I'm sure you do too. Good Luck Chosen Children!" with that said, he unfurled himself and disappeared into the clouds.

------

Ken took a hesitant step forward, his foot pressing the grass, crunching a dead leaf. The wind blew a chilly breeze, which seemed out of place for the season. He shifted Sam in his arms and continued forward, weaving in and out of the tombstones.

He had already visited the first person he wanted to introduce Sam to; Iori. Ken had reflected how cruel it seemed that such a wise child had died so young. But he had died just like his father, protecting the people who he felt were more important than himself. In a way, Ken was awed by him.

As he walked forward his hair got caught up in the wind and fell over his eyes, blinding him for a moment. When he could see again he was almost surprised to see that he was in front of Osamu's grave.

He stopped walking abruptly and then took a few slow steps forward and finally knelt down on the grass.

Feeling incredibly out of place, Ken couldn't seem to find the words that he wanted to say. This was the first time he had visited Osamu's grave since the funeral and that day had being such a blur to him anyway.

People had spoken to him but the words had flown over him like the wind.

What do you say to the person you killed, who was your brother?

"Hello, 'Samu."

Ken wanted to laugh bitterly at himself but held it back.

"I came to show you your son. We found out Kouen was pregnant after…well, it's a boy."

He lifted Sam a little as if to show him to Osamu's headstone.

"He looks just like you did when you were a baby. He's got your eyes. Kouen decided to call him Sam after you and…"

He took a deep shuddering breath, "She misses you so much. We both do. There's so much happening now that…I don't know if we'll ever be okay. It's like everything is falling apart and slipping through out fingers and I wish there was something I could do to stop it. And it all started with this Dark Seed thing. As it turns out, a man named Owikawa is behind this whole thing. He's being possessed and well, he's just another pawn in this whole sick game too. I swear to you Osamu, I will stop this and put it to rest so I can avenge you."

Sam moaned a little and squirmed in Ken's arms, bringing the attention on him. Ken looked down and rocked him a little, saying, "Shh, it's okay, Sam."

Then Ken lifted his eyes again and stared at the tombstone, "I'm not going to pretend you were some saint, Osamu, because we both know that you weren't and neither was I, but what happened to you was not your fault and it spun out of your control. So I'll make it right for you."

He took another deep breath in and exhaled slowly, a piece of him being carried on the wind and away from him.

------

Her hand ran along a wooden crate and then fell to her side as she walked through the hollow warehouse, her feet echoing with each step.

She lifted her head to look up at the many levels and remembered when each room or area was taken up with children or families or resistance fighters.

"_It's not true, Osamu! I love you, Yamato is just a friend!"_

"_Liar!"_

_A shot reverberated through the air, chilling everyone to the bone. A single cry went out as Iori ran and pushed Matt out of the way. The boy was dead before he even hit the floor. _

"_NO!" Ken screamed, his throat tearing. _

"_Why?" Kouen cried and ran forward but Osamu was already retreating on Stingmon._

Kouen closed her eyes against the image as it ran through her head and turned away.

Her eyes roved over the warehouse and fell to the door leading to the dojo. She walked forward and slowly unlocked and opened the door, feeling horribly nostalgic.

All the weapons were still there on the shelf, including her pair of Sai. She had almost forgotten that Matt had collected them and put them back here with her father's other weapons.

And then her eyes landed on the katana, which Ken had used to kill Osamu. Both weapons had being cleaned she noticed but that didn't make them any less tainted.

She moved across the room and brushed her hand over the Sai, the one that had penetrated her flesh and organs and almost killed her and quickly she pulled her hand away as if it had burnt her.

She turned around and realized that it had being a long time since she had being in a dojo. For the first time in a long time, she suddenly felt calm and at home.

A dojo reminded her of her father, good times, training hard, feeling focused.

As if she had meant to do it all along, she moved to the middle of the room and began working on her kata and kicks and a genuine smile suddenly washed over her face. She suddenly felt alive, she felt focused, grounded and like the whole world made sense, even though it was thrown into chaos.

------

Ken and Kouen were in the kitchen preparing dinner, while Shinsei looked after Sam in the living area. The tall indigo young man was making a strong note of setting things down with a hard slam, until Kouen finally turned to him, her temper flaring.

"You're angry with me aren't you?"

"I'm not."

"Bullshit. I can see it."

"Then, yes, I am. Happy now?"

She frowned at him, "No. Why are you angry with me."

"You already know."

"Oh for God's sake, are we going to go round in circles like this?"

Ken tossed the saltshaker across the room, where it exploded with a loud shattering sound, and sprinkled to the tiled floor below. Kouen barely flinched.

"It was my mess Kouen. My duty! Stingmon and I could have handled it fine."

"Yes, and taken your sweet time about it, in the mean time, things would have gotten out of control and the worlds would be in danger once again."

Ken marched to the other side of the kitchen, "You don't understand Kouen! You don't know how I feel, what it's like to live with!"

"No, I was not the Kaiser-"

"I killed him Kouen!" Ken fell to his knees and began to sob uncontrollably tears sparkling sadly in his crystal blue eyes, "I killed him and I can't live with myself for doing it! I miss him so much and it's my fault!"

Kouen's mouth fell open and she automatically fell to his side, holding him in her arms, she rocked him back and forth, "I know you do." She cooed, "I'm sorry you had to go through this, I never wanted you to go through it, that's why I…" she sighed and kissed his head, "You never did get to mourn did you?"

He began to sob harder and then fell silent, still letting tears fall down his face.

Kouen just let him cry; let him feel, let him grieve. She stroked his hair and held him close to her.

"I'm so sorry, Kouen." He whispered in a choked sob.

She looked down at him and shook her head, "Ken, you don't have to apologize to me. You saved us all and more importantly, you released Osamu from the internal hell he was going through. I just wish that I could do the same for you."

He pulled away slightly and looked at her, blinking a few times and then he pulled up his sleeve to show his arm to her.

"I just wanted to make the pain in my head stop." He croaked as if trying to make an excuse for what he had done to himself.

She nodded, understanding completely what he was saying and placed a hand on his scars, then pulling him close to her in a hug, she wrapped her arm around him.

"I'm so grateful I have you in my life Kouen." He muttered.

"Me too, Ken."

They sat like that for what must have been an hour until Shinsei entered the kitchen and looked down at them with a happy smile, "The healing has begun." She whispered and walked out of the room again.

------

(AN) Right well, another chapter done.

I know that there are mistakes with the names of the digimon and whatnot but I can't find the Japanese names for the digimon, so please point them out for me and I'll change them. Obviously, there are intentional mistakes but I'm sure you'll figure out where those come in. Oh and, if you see that I've called Tailmon, Gatomon please let me know, I keep thinking I've found all those mistakes but I find another one.

(Edited) Thanks Aknio Ame for the corrections. I agree the fight was quick, but I did that mostly because in 'Doppelgangland' she easily defeated Daemon, which shocked Ken. BlackWarGraymon compared to Daemon is a walk in the park, but I did add some stuff to it now to make it a little better. I've made her so strong for one very specific reason (which will show in 'Cruel Angel's Thesis'). Ironically, her strength will be her biggest weakness.

Thanks for the name corrections. I edited those too.


	5. Chapter 5

"Sins of the Father"

5. 'Scared'

_"I think there's something out there_

_I think I heard it move_

_I've never felt like this before._

_I wish you never told me_

_I wish I never knew_

_I wake up screaming_

_It's all because of you._

_Scared and lonely_

_You won't be scared_

_You won't be scared and lonely_

_You won't be scared, you won't be lonely."_

_Three days grace 'Scared'_

A month had slipped by very smoothly while the Chosen Children waited with bated breath for the next disaster, which they knew, was coming. After all they had spoken to the Digidestined from their mirrored world and knew what was supposed to be coming.

Ken and Miyako had spent the past month getting much closer to one another. She was helping him dramatically in grieving for and getting over Osamu's death. Daisuke helped too, though in his own unique way of getting Ken involved in a sport he hadn't played in years, which was a pity because he was an excellent soccer player.

Kouen had finally gotten a job, thanks to Miyako. She was working the tills at Miyako's parents' shop. Shinsei cared for Sam while Kouen was working, which suited the Oracle fine, since she loved Sam and was able to keep a close watch on him. Kouen and Ken had noticed this about Shinsei and questioned the young woman about her reasons. Kouen seemed quite panicked about it, but Shinsei had reassured the redhead that her son was in no immediate danger.

Hikari was paying for some snacks from Miyako's store, for a meeting that was to happen in the next hour, where all the Chosen would discuss the lack of activity going on, and she grinned at Kouen as she paid.

"What?" Kouen asked finally.

"Oh nothing, only that guy over there, has been checking you out since he stepped into the store."

Kouen looked over Hikari's shoulder and noticed a tall young man in his early twenties. He had jet-black hair that was long, though not as long as Ken's and his bangs hung in his deep brown eyes. Kouen felt a sudden jolt in her stomach that she couldn't quite place, but knew that the last time she had felt that, was when she first looked at Osamu.

Kouen thrust Hikari's change into her hand and said shakily, "So what if he has been checking me out, I'm not interested."

Hikari inclined her head, "Kouen, Osamu was the only guy you ever went out with and now, well now he's gone…it's time you moved on."

The redhead opened her mouth to yell at Hikari but felt the air escape her lungs as if someone had hit her in the gut. She closed her mouth again and sighed heavily, "I'm not ready Hikari, and I feel like I would be betraying Osamu some how."

Hikari picked up her bag and shrugged, "I'm not saying marry the guy, just…talk to him at least."

She smiled kindly at Kouen and left the store with a tinkle of the bell.

Kouen busied herself with neatly stacking the magazines in their racks when the young man in question approached her, "Kouen?" he asked quietly.

She turned sharply, "How do you know my name?"

"My name's Akihito, I was one of the resistance members last year. I was a friend of Mike's."

"Oh," she studied his face but still couldn't place it.

"You probably don't recognize me. I understand, things were very confusing during that time. I'm…well, I'm sorry about Osamu." His voice was full of compassion and it made her smile for some reason.

"Thank you." She said quietly.

"Didn't you have a son?" he asked innocently.

The smile slipped off her face, "Yes I did, how did-?"

"Mike told me."

"Oh, how is he?"

"Doing alright." Akihito glanced Kouen up and down, "You can't tell you know."

She frowned, "Tell what?"

"That you had a baby." He looked up into her face and smiled genuinely, "You're still as beautiful as you were the first time I saw you."

Kouen was taken aback, "I-I…um…"

"I know you're going through a rough patch, but could I possibly ask you to dinner?" his tone was kind and gentle, and his voice had a soothing effect on her.

She searched her brain for some excuse to say 'no', but she could not find one and so sighed and said, "Alright, I suppose dinner couldn't hurt."

----

Kouen entered her apartment to find Miyako, Shinsei and Sam all in the living room. "Not everyone here yet?" she asked as she put down a bag of groceries.

"No, just me." Miyako informed her and went to help Kouen unpack the food, "The others should be here soon though."

"Where's Ken?"

"He's up on the roof."

Kouen paused and looked up slowly, "He hasn't been up there in years."

Miyako nodded and smiled grimly, "He said he thought it was time he went there."

Kouen put down the bottle of baby food on the counter and moved passed Miyako, "I think I'll go check on him. Would you mind seeing the others in?"

"Not at all."

Kouen turned and marched to the door and then down the corridor to the elevator. She pressed the highest numbered button and as the doors closed, she felt the jerk of the elevator as it assented the building. When it stopped, it's steel gray doors opened and she went to the stairs leading to the roof.

She stopped when she saw the tall young man with chin-length indigo hair doing Tai Chi.

The sun was low in the sky and was casting long shadows over the roof.

She closed the door quietly behind her and moved over to Ken. She paused when she saw his eyes were closed.

"I thought you never wanted to come back up here?" she said quietly.

Ken opened his blue eyes and regarded her for a moment, "That was a long time ago. It was something I needed to do. We had good times up here."

Kouen smiled despite herself and nodded, "You used to blow bubbles up here for hours."

"And then we used to train up here." He added quietly.

"Who knew we would use those skills against him?" she sighed heavily. "How are you doing?"

"I'm…all things considered, I'm doing better. My grades are back where they should be, which means I'll graduate with colleges begging me to go to their schools. I've been visiting my parents more often now, and things are better between us. We talked for hours the other day…about him and, well, things are okay now. Miyako and I have gotten a lot closer too. I've been thinking of asking her to marry me…after I have a job of course, but I don't know…"

"She'll say yes." Kouen promised.

"How do you-?"

"I've seen the way she looks at you Ken. And the way she missed you when she was in…in the Base. She's in love with you."

For the first time in a long time, Ken smiled a genuine, heart-bursting smile. It was so infectious, Kouen felt herself grinning too.

"We should get back downstairs, the meeting should be starting soon."

Ken nodded and followed her to the door.

When they reached the apartment, they walked into the living room to see all the Chosen Children, along with Shinsei and Sam.

They sat down and Daisuke took this as the introduction of the meeting.

"Well, I called this meeting because we all know that we aren't out of the hot water yet. We know there are other things to come, but I don't know about anyone else, but I'm feeling very unnerved by this eerie calm that's taken over the Digital world."

Takeru nodded, "It's like the calm before the storm."

"Actually, I'm pretty sure that's exactly what it is." Ken said darkly, "We may have – thanks to Kouen – been able to stop Blackwargraymon from destroying the Destiny Stones, or whatever they are called, which kept the balance of the worlds in order, but we haven't stopped everything the Digidestined warned us about. We know that when the fabric to both worlds was disrupted, the Digidestined went off for a while to gather up and send back a bunch of Digimon to the Digital world. Clearly, this hasn't happened for us, so the next disaster we had to face was the kidnapping of those kids, who as my double had pointed out, might be teenagers now. But so far, nothing, no news of any of this. Which makes me think, why don't we go after this Owikawa guy before he comes after us?"

"NO!" Kouen burst out suddenly and everyone turned to her sharply, "Ken, you know what will happen if he gets his hands on you! Which means that he will get to the Digital world, thanks to your Dark Seed and turn into Malomyotismon. We can't have that."

"Actually," Shinsei said quietly, though her voice shivered with energy, which made everyone shudder and face her, "We can. More than that, we should let all that happen."

Kouen and Ken frowned, but Miyako was the one to ask, "Why?"

"Because, I have told you many times before, Fate and Destiny are twins, though they are similar, they are not the same. Things happen for a reason, even if the path that Fate has mapped out for Destiny changes, Destiny will still get her way, because Fate plans many forks in the path."

Everyone stared at the young woman with long black hair and pale blue eyes. She didn't speak often, but when she did, the Chosen often found themselves unable to understand what she was saying, which was a big pity because when she did speak, it was often with high importance.

Ken seemed to figure out what she was saying, "Do you mean, that even if I tried to avoid being kidnapped, it would happen anyway?"

Shinsei nodded, "Things happen for a reason." For some reason, she said this looking directly at Kouen who shifted and looked down at Tailmon.

"What about them?" Hikari asked, seemingly reading Kouen's mind, "Davis seemed concerned that our digimon had not leant how to DNA digivolve, which means we can't fight Maloyotismon, we're not strong enough."

Suddenly Kouen understood what Shinsei had said through the look in her eyes and frowned at Hikari, "You have me. I'm a god remember? Maloyotismon should be a breeze to defeat."

Ken felt a horrible sensation in his gut when she had said the word 'god' and he looked up to correct her, "The Spirit is a god, Kouen, not you."

She sighed, "You know what I mean."

"So are you saying," Demiveemon butted in, "that we aren't going to fight?"

"We could try, but like Hikari said, we aren't strong enough." Tailmon replied, "We should leave it up to Kouen."

"So," Daisuke said after a beat, "that's it? We're just gonna sit around and wait for the fight to come to us?"

"It's all we can do." Takeru breathed and folded his arms.

"Well, if that's everything," Kouen began, "I have to get Sam bathed and fed and then to bed."

Daisuke nodded and stood up, followed by everyone else.

Ken saw everyone to the door and then returned to Miyako who had stayed in the lounge. They watched Kouen pick up Sam and move to the bathroom with him, closing the door after her. Shinsei drifted off to her room and closed the door behind herself too, leaving the two alone with Wormmon.

The lavender-haired woman sat next to Ken on the couch and rested her head on his chest. "Something is bothering you." She stated and Wormmon looked up but said nothing.

"Hmm?"

"Something about Kouen."

"It's…well, it's…ever since Azulongmon told her that the Spirit in her is a god, she's gotten…well I guess a 'god complex' or something. I think we're relying on her too much, it's not right. What if she's not there to help us?"

"But you told me that she's immortal." She said sitting up to look into his worried face.

"I said she's invulnerable, and even so, there may come a time where she is unable to fight, who knows." He sighed heavily, "Maybe I'm just paranoid."

"No, you worry, it's what you do." She ran her hands through his hair and kissed him, then looked back into his face, "You worry about her too."

He nodded, "She's lonely Miyako, she doesn't have some one to…to hold her, like you hold me when I need you. I sometimes think she'll never love anyone again."

Miyako gave him a wry grin, "I wouldn't think that, Hikari told me that this hottie was checking her out this afternoon and after she left, she saw them talking and it looked promising."

Ken smiled and felt his heart lighten, "I'm glad. I know she keeps telling me to grieve and move on, but I think she needs to take her own advice too."

After about two hours, Kouen exited her bedroom wearing a long violet, figure hugging dress that reached her ankles, with thin straps over her shoulders and a glittering silver butterfly motif on her left breast. She wore black strapped sandals with a slight heal, making her appear a little taller than she really was. Her copper hair was loose and her bouncing curls fell all around her. She marched into the living room, with a business-like seriousness and stood in front of them, "How do I look?" she asked desperately.

Miyako smiled and beamed at her, "You look gorgeous! Do you have a date?" she asked innocently.

Kouen nodded and smoothed out the creases in her dress by her waist, "It's not too sexy or anything is it?"

Ken opened his mouth, "It's very pretty. I've never seen you wear that."

"No, I bought it a couple of weeks ago but haven't had a chance to wear it yet."

"So who is this guy?" Ken asked sitting up.

"He's from the resistance actually." At that point Sam started crying and she looked sharply in that direction, "I better go-"

"Shinsei will see him." Ken interrupted her.

Kouen hesitated, "Maybe this is a bad idea. Maybe I should call him and cancel."

"No!" Miyako said sternly, "You deserve this, go have fun, we'll be here if anything goes wrong and we'll call you if we have to."

Still she hesitated, "I don't know."

"She's right Kouen." Ken stood up and led her to the door, "You deserve this, and you keep telling me to move on, now it's your turn."

She looked as though she was going to argue with him for a second but then her face relaxed and she sighed, nodding. She picked up her keys and put them in her handbag and left the apartment.

Ken looked anxiously at Miyako when he closed the door, "This is the right thing for her right?"

Miyako smiled wisely, "Yes." She stood up, "Now, you sit down and get the movie ready while I get the popcorn." Smiling, she marched to the kitchen with Wormmon at her heels, while Ken turned on the television and sat down.

"Thank you Miyako." Wormmon said gently.

She looked down, "For what?"

"For taking care of Ken, the way I couldn't."

The corner of her mouth lifted and she nodded to him, "I love him, it's-"

She was interrupted by the sound of glass breaking and they both ran to the living room to find Ken on his feet staring transfixed at the television, one of the glasses knocked over onto the tiled floor. It had obviously been knocked when Ken had sprung to his feet.

"Ken!" Miyako breathed, "What is it?"

"We should have known. We should have kept a closer watch on the news, but we were too busy with…" he trailed off as he turned up the volume. Miyako looked at the TV and gasped.

The screen filled with the faces of missing teenagers.

----

When Kouen arrived at the restaurant it was to find that Akihito was already sitting at the table waiting for her. He was dressed in an electric blue shirt and smart black pants. He smiled when he saw her and stood up, guided her to her seat, pulled the chair out for her and then sat down.

"Sorry I'm late," she began breathlessly, "I didn't know what to wear…it's been a long time since I've been on a date."

His eyes never left her eyes, "I think you look beautiful, and you're not late, I was early."

She smiled gratefully for the white lie. She knew full well that she was about ten minutes late but the fact that he over-looked it made her feel less nervous about the date. Osamu had always told her first impressions were important and she didn't want this hansom young man to think she disrespected him by being late.

Throughout the evening she found many traits in Akihito that she found desirable. He had a very good sense of humor, which she seemed to need. He sensed that she hadn't laughed heartily in a long time. He was also a good listener, though he did seem a bit blunt at times when he did interject, but it didn't seem to bother her. In fact, she liked the honesty.

"It must have been hard for you, having Sam when Osamu was gone and Ken was the Kaiser."

Kouen nodded, "But Ken's back to himself now and he's been a great help. I guess we sort of hold each other up in a way. What about you? Did something happen to your family to bring you into the resistance?"

Akihito took a sip of his drink and set the glass down again, looking up at Kouen he replied, "My father was captured and turned into a Sniper…he was killed while in the Kaiser's duty. My mother and I live alone now."

Kouen blanched and opened her mouth to say she was sorry but Akihito cut across her, "It's okay, I don't blame Osamu, it's not his fault. He was taken over by something evil and he didn't know what he was doing."

Kouen's mouth closed and formed a grim smile, "How are you so understanding?"

He smiled and inclined his head, "I guess because not many people understand me, I am able to understand others well." He shrugged, "Anyway, lets change the subject. I take it you didn't choose to work in a grocery store, so what's your real dream?"

She smiled and went into how she wished she could be a Sensei like her father was and run his old Dojo. The night progressed smoothly and when it came to saying goodbye, Akihito insisted on walking Kouen to her van, where he gave a small bow and thanked her for the wonderful evening. He also asked if he could see her again and after a slight hesitation she nodded and got into her van and drove off around the corner. She stopped the van and felt her heart pumping incredibly fast and a sudden lack of air in the van was making her gasp. She felt the corners of her eyes start tingling and fanned her face to force the tears to recede. A mounting guilt was filling her up inside until she could not take it any longer and put her arms and head onto her steering wheel where she burst into tears and sobbed loudly.

"Stop it." She finally told herself sternly, "Just because I really like this guy it doesn't mean I don't love Osamu any less. Besides, he's gone and he would want me to move on and be happy. I know he would."

She pulled out a tissue from her bag and dabbed her eyes dry and made a little noise somewhere between a laugh and a hiccup. She tried to start the van again but it wouldn't turn over. She sighed and pulled out her cell phone. She dialed and waited for someone to pick up.

"Hello?" Ken's voice answered through the phone.

"Ken? It's me, I'm stuck, and the van won't start again. Can you come by and pick me up? Or give me a jump start or something?"

"Okay, I'll be there in a few minutes, where are you?" There seemed to be a distracted tone in his voice but she reserved asking him for when she met him face to face.

She gave him the directions and hung up the phone. Then she sighed and turned on the radio and listened to a few songs and then finally a news report. The report of the missing children brought a sickening jolt to Kouen, where she sat up straighter and turned up the volume. The reporter talked of how several more children had gone missing over the past few days and how they still had no leads on the children who had gone missing over the past week. She jumped when Ken knocked on her window and she opened the door and stepped outside.

"Ken," she breathed, "I just heard a report on the kidnapped -"

"I know, I saw it earlier." He stated grimly.

Kouen looked about and then said anxiously, "Let's do this quickly."

Ken nodded and took out his jumper cables and hooked them up to his battery and then to Kouen's. He got into her car and turned on the engine, which fed electricity and power to her battery, enabling her to start up her van.

She got out to thank him and tell him to head home but a white truck pulled up right beside them and the back door opened. Arukenimon stepped out and walked straight up to Ken. "Ken, you and I need to have a little chat."

He narrowed his eyes at her defiantly, "Go to hell."

"Actually I was thinking that you would join me in the back of this truck." She said smoothly.

"I know what you're doing!" he spat at her.

"Good, that means less explaining. So do us both a favor and get into the back here."

He made a movement forward and Kouen ran up to him and yelled, "NO Ken!"

He turned to her, "I have to. Remember what Shinsei said? I'll be okay, but if I don't go, these kids will get hurt."

"I can kill her now." Kouen growled, indicating to Arukenimon.

"You could, but it wouldn't stop the inevitable. It's something I have to do Kouen, for some strange reason."

She frowned, looking into his eyes imploringly, "Ken…"

He shook his head gently and stepped into the truck. He looked at Arukenimon, "If I go with you, you will let these kids go right?"

She bowed slightly, "I give you my word." She slammed the door shut and the truck peeled away, leaving Kouen fuming with anger.

"Screw this!" she hissed and phoned Miyako telling her what had happened and telling her to call the others. Then she threw the phone into the van, locked it and transformed into Houomon. Using the strong fiery, feathery wings coming out her back, she took flight and followed the truck as it sped off through the streets heading for Heighten View Terrace.

--------

(AN: Ack, sorry, I thought I had gotten all these chapters up but I suddenly realized that I hadn't. Sorry about that. I realize that these chapters may seem a bit dull but then again re-writing the finale of season 2 was a bit dull. I added a few twists, all set up for 'Cruel Angel's Thesis'. Like I keep saying this is to bridge the gap between that story and 'Doppelgangland'. Again, if you spot an error with a digimon name or something like that, let me know so I can fix it.)


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